


Woken Up Like An Animal

by andymcnope



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Brief mentions of blood and permanent body modifications, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-11
Updated: 2014-09-11
Packaged: 2018-02-16 23:17:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2288210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andymcnope/pseuds/andymcnope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shaw. Root. A tattoo parlor. (that’s about it)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Woken Up Like An Animal

“Ah,” a breath rushes out of Root’s mouth, unbearably loud even with the soft buzzing that seems to echo in the room.

Shaw pulls the gun back, the rubber hose brushing uncomfortably against the latex glove. “I told you I haven’t exactly done this before,” she points out. “Not on someone else.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Root reassures her as she resumes her position on the padded chair, moving her hair until it’s out of the way again, exposing the skin of her upper back and nape of her neck. “I want it,” she adds softly and Shaw doesn’t need to see the other woman’s face to know she’s smirking.

An uncomfortable weight settles in Shaw’s stomach; it feels like Root’s trust, except that’s just stupid because they don’t have trust _…_  they have an  _understanding_  of sorts.

(Their understanding leads to safety goggles and bicycle rides across the city in the middle of a blackout. And tonight, it leads to a mission at a tattoo parlor in the Village; the owner conveniently invited to a show in London, courtesy of Wren Enterprises.)

Shaw resumes the exacting strokes of the tattoo gun around the transferred marks on Root’s skin.

“How did you learn to do this?” Root asks, craning her neck around slightly and Shaw presses an insistent hand against her jaw, moving her to the previous position.

“Can’t you ask _Her_?” Shaw bites back as she finishes tracing another circular shape.

“What's the fun in that,” Root offers. “And there are a lot of things about you she doesn’t know, Sameen.”

Shaw’s lips tug slightly, not quite hiding how pleased she feels. “Maybe I wanna keep it that way.”

“You are no fun.” 

“Did I or did I not agree to your brilliant idea to pass time?” Shaw points out as she runs the needle over cartilage; Root’s sharp intake of breath echoes around them and makes the poorly insulated parlor feel like a sauna. “This part is gonna hurt,” Shaw warns. “Shoulder blade can be a bitch.”

“I can handle it,” Root retorts, voice not sounding terrified or hesitant. 

(Just the contrary, actually.)

“Never doubted that,” Shaw adds as she presses the needle again. This position is uncomfortable so she places her knee against the vinyl seat of the tattoo chair, inches away from Root’s left hip.

Root gasps as the needle presses into a spot that is rich with nerve endings, at the edge of the shoulder blade; blood wells around the ink, the tiniest of droplets slides down the smooth expanse of pale skin. Shaw watches it for a second before she snaps out of it; the pad that she’s been using to dab at the skin is stained bright red with black ink, so she reaches for a brand new pad. She wipes the fine line until it’s just skin again, tiny freckles catching her eyes in a way she had never quite allowed herself before.

“I, uh… I was in Prague and someone had identified some of my ink. I considered abrasion but that’d take more time than I had, and acid isn’t exactly low profile, so I came across a tattoo gun,” she explains, though she’s not sure why she’s sharing the story after her earliest refusal.

“Just came across it, huh?” Root teases. 

Shaw ignores her. “Anyway, I managed to get it done on my own, made it look totally different enough from the description. And then when I got away, I took the time to learn more about it, you know read some shit and paid attention next time I was at a club, so I could fix the damn thing.”

Root’s elbow reaches back until it’s brushing against Shaw’s thigh. “And did you?”

“Yeah,” Shaw replies, pulling away and wondering if her the slight tremble in her voice is a result of clutching the tattoo gun too tightly, the vibration pattern ringing through her even when she’s not pressing the trigger.

Root cranes her neck back at her. “Can I see it?”

Shaw bites her lip as she considers the question for what it truly is - a proposal. “What makes you think you haven’t already?”

Root concedes the point in their ongoing game, lips curling into what seems to be a genuine smile before she turns back to stare the wall, letting Shaw resume the patterns. “What is this, anyway?”

“Binary code,” Root explains. “Ones and zeros.”

“Well, obviously,” Shaw adds with contempt. “I might not be the most technical person, but I have been hanging around your kind for quite a while. I meant what does it mean.”

“Right now? It’s a number,” Root explains. “But once it’s completed, who knows?”

Shaw pauses the needle. “So I’m just tattooing numbers on your skin?” 

“Numbers aren’t just numbers, Sameen, and I am not even talking about the people she lets us help. The most beautiful symphony can be translated into a mathematical equation, every alphabet of every civilization can be written in numbers, along with every DNA sequence and every poem ever written.”

Shaw stares at the ones and zeroes she’s already traced, tries to read them but she’d have more luck finding constellations among the freckles of Root’s back. “This would be a very short poem,” she points out as she resumes her ministration.

“It’s a start,” Root replies in her distant voice.


End file.
